


Strings

by Hel_in_NL



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Recovery, it always gets better, self-care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 21:30:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20442836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hel_in_NL/pseuds/Hel_in_NL
Summary: After Aziraphale and Crowley are cut loose from their respective faction, Aziraphale figures everything will be fine.Except...he doesn't feel fine.





	Strings

Angels were meant to be beings of love and hope, assured in God’s glory, at peace with the universe and accepting of all its happenings.

Aziraphale could remember his first days of existence. That was exactly how he felt. Every way he turned there was light and goodness, a sense of wellness, love and glory. It was in this environment he thrived and grew into his wings. It was at Her feet he worshipped and praised with all his being. 

He still felt Her in all things. That was probably why despair had never found purchase in his heart despite six thousand years of war, pestilence, famine, pollution, and death. For every act of war there was a peacemaker standing up for the innocent. For every plague a healer comforting the ill. For every famine someone willing to share their bread with a stranger. For every destructive act someone trying to do better by the Earth. For every death a mourner. 

Aziraphale believed love and hope was Her message. Why else would he feel Her so strongly in every act of goodness? 

The vindication he felt when it was love and hope that inspired the AntiChrist to cease the Apocalypse had been palpable. The best tasting dish he’d ever been served. 

Him and Crowley being able to escape punishment doled out by corrupt leadership had been a great dessert. 

Except...now he felt heavy in a way that was foreign to him. It wasn’t  _ exactly _ sadness. He was intimately familiar with sadness. He’d been sad often in his life, often over something that was out of his hands or because he’d been forced to make a choice that sat poorly with him. 

He supposed this feeling was something like sadness. It certainly made his eyes burn with unshed tears and his chest ache, yet there was no cause for it. He wasn’t upset about not being in heaven’s good books, though he was upset about what they considered the good books being so narrow minded. No, this sadness was a growing, gnawing thing that seemed to always existed in the periphery of his mind, threatening to creep in and make him unreasonably distraught over something as simple as spilled tea.

Along with the sad ache came the lack of joy, which was something altogether alien to him. Even at the worst of times he had joy. Yet now his books felt dull, the theater too crowded, his favorite restaurants not worth the hassle. Even Crowley seemed tiresome. Oh! What an awful realization that had been! Crowley, his dearest friend, the unwitting recipient of his affections,  _ tiresome!  _ He knew he couldn’t possibly  _ actually _ feel that way...yet anytime he thought about calling the man over he stopped himself, unable to muster the energy to keep up with manic pace the demon was prone to setting. 

In truth, if Crowley was tiresome it was because Aziraphale was simply too listless to manage even the slightest mental taxation. It was through no fault of his own.

Lack of joy in what he used to love brought about guilt. Guilt because he  _ should _ be reading, he  _ should _ be indulging in life and his new found freedom! He  _ should _ be with Crowley as, no doubt, the demon was waiting on him to help decide what they should do with their new lives. He had freedom, time, and companionship. He was wasting time with this worthless malaise!

Yet he could not stop. 

The earth and humanity had been saved yet he felt like Atlas, the whole weight of the world pressed down upon his shoulders. 

Crowley was the first to note his unusual mood, as Aziraphale feared he might. He had basically bullied himself through the front door, settled himself on the near threadbare couch in his backroom, and miracled them both a bottle of wine of an excellent vintage. Aziraphale did his best to enjoy its sweet notes, the slight hints of clove...but it was all surface level. He could derive no real joy from either drink or company. 

“It’s not like you to guzzle a glass of red like its a shot, angel.” Crowley observed, his words carefully measured and gentle. He was being studied from behind those dark glasses, as if he were suffering from some unheard of affliction or physical oddity.

Aziraphale felt something akin to annoyance flare in his chest. “Are you going to criticize my drinking habits, dear?” He asked defensively, tone sharper than he would ever normally allow.

The demon frowned, his nose wrinkling slightly. “Wasn’t a critique. It usually takes you three or four glasses to start going hard, s’all.”

“I wasn’t prepared for wine and company,” Aziraphale snapped testily, hating the mood he was setting yet unable to stop himself. “You really should have called. I was dreadfully busy.”   
  
He had not been busy. More than that, Crowley never needed to call to visit so what right had he to be angry that his moping had been intruded upon? 

A wrinkle at the red heads brow accompanied the one at the bridge of his nose. A guilty, confused feeling churned in the angels stomach. “...you alright?”

“Of course I am!” He was snapping again, guarded in a way the suggested an insult or wrongdoing. Why did Crowley feel like he had the right to be so...so... _ so concerned? _ Aziraphale was more than capable of handling whatever this was on his own! He was a bloody angel! An  _ expert _ in feelings! “Like I said, I was unprepared for company.”   
  
A twist of pretty lips. “I haven’t heard from you in a week.” This was a shocking revelation. Had he really not called since he called off their last dinner reservation? “Just thought maybe you could use the company.” 

Aziraphale, miserable as he was, could read between the lines.

Crowley had needed the company. Crowley thought that maybe he had done something to cause this. 

The feeling rottenness in him reached new levels. 

“As you can see, I did not. I simply need some time on my own, dear.” He was aiming for prim and proper but over shot, launching himself into callous and cold. “We’ve gone hundreds of years without seeing each other. A week is nothing to get twisted up over.”

Never mind that going hundreds of years without seeing each other was miserable on a whole other level. Honestly, where were these words coming from? They ran contradictory to everything he knew about himself and his motivations for saving the world!

Crowley was standing, very nearly startling him at the suddenness with which he did so. “Right. You’re right. Rude of me to just barge in.”   
  
“Quite,” Aziraphale muttered bitterly. He’d gone and done it now. He’d upset the dear man. An apology would be needed to smooth things over.

...later. Not now. He was festering a little too much to make a sincere attempt, no matter how much he longed to do so.

Really, these contradictory feelings were doing his head in.

The demon sneered, exposing a fanged tooth.  _ “Quite,” _ he mocked, voice a growl. 

He left without another word, slamming the door so hard that the ancient bell above it clattered to the floor and the windows shook.

Aziraphale finished the bottle of wine all on his own and didn’t bother to sober himself after.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The bed in his flat was strictly for show. It had been purchased nearly a century before and had not seen a sleeping body in all that time. Most days it was covered in books or knick knacks waiting to find a permanent home on one of the many shelves in the building. Sometimes an item of clothing would be laid out to be worn for some special occasion. Aziraphale miracled it clear monthly, ridding it of any mustiness, but the sheets hadn’t been changed since they were first miracled on. 

If it had the capability to think it would have been very confused at the moment. 

There was an angel wrapped up in its normally pristine blankets, embedding himself in the pillows and mattress like he sought to make up for lost time. Said angel hadn’t even put on pajamas or other night clothes, instead collapsing fully dressed, aside from shoes, on the beds surface and making himself at home.

The first day Aziraphale stayed in bed he reasoned it was because he drank too much wine and forgot miracle himself sober. He could have gotten rid of the hangover with a wave of his hand yet he chose not to. He deserved this pain. He’d been awful, hadn’t he? He’d been awful for no reason other than it was shockingly easy to be so.

After a time he wept. Then sobbed. Oh, he’d been down right  _ monstrous! _ Crowley had issues, ones that he trusted Aziraphale to handle compassionately despite never making that request verbally. Aziraphale simply knew that the demon needed kindness and patience. He needed to be reassured that he was welcome, that he was wanted. 

Yet Aziraphale had damn near kicked him out in the most immature way possible. The guilt from his own foulness was acrid like bile on his tongue. 

After he had sobbed out his guilt he slept again, dreamless and far from restful. When he awoke the sheets were twisted about his body and it was dark where it had once been light. Too late to open shop. Probably not too late to call Crowley and set things right...yet he didn’t. He couldn’t gather the energy to move his body, let alone formulate a fitting apology.

So he slept again. At least when he was asleep he wasn’t thinking. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He awoke again. And again. Each time he found things too grey, too painful, and too heavy. It was easy to roll back over to be embraced in darkness again. During one brief period of wakefulness he had a stray thought about Crowley having it right with the whole napping a century away thing. 

Perhaps he’d give it a go. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The phone was ringing downstairs. It ancient bells chiming cheerfully, alerting him that someone desired his voice. A customer looking for a rare book, perhaps.

Crowley, more likely.

Oh. Oh dear. He should answer. Let him know he was alright, just a tad under the weather.

...the phone was all the way down stairs, however. A seemingly impossible distance to overcome. He’d never get there before the caller rang off.

It trilled a few more times.

Silence.

Then it started again.

Aziraphale found it surprisingly easy to tune out. Usually the phone ringing brought with it a sense of anxiety, the demand it be answered and answered quickly. He found he didn’t have it in him to feel anxious about the increasingly frantic sounding phone. It was too much trouble, required too much effort to feel so intensely. 

Finally the ringing stopped and didn’t continue. 

He rolled over, cocooned himself in his blankets, buried his face, and slept. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crowley was in his shop. 

He could feel him unlock the door with a minor miracle, dragging him from his sleep. Now the man was prowling about downstairs with a deliberate kind of caution. Aziraphale could very nearly picture him searching for signs of an ambush...or perhaps he was just noting that the shelves were undusted or that the glasses from when they last drank together were still where they had been.

Aziraphale supposed he should have felt embarrassed or ashamed at leaving the backroom in such a state. He did not.

He also supposed he should have felt like his privacy was being invaded. Crowley was willingly ignoring his obvious desire to be left alone.

He didn’t feel angry about that either.

He felt very little at all. Like all his emotions were distant things, being held up above him on stings. He could recognize what  _ should _ be felt...but the actual feelings themselves weren’t even close to brushing his finger tips when he reached for them. 

If he was able to be concerned he would have been. He’d read books on depression and other such mental illnesses, both factual and fictional accounts. Angels were surely incapable of such human ailments. Instead he just considered reaching out for concern, decided it was too much effort to stretch that far, and watched it float away. 

Crowley’s feet sounded heavy on the stairs, heavier than they had any right to be given how slight he was. The demon could move soundlessly if he wished. He was intentionally making noise, then. 

Then he was in his small, dark flat. 

Then at the side of his bed.

Aziraphale didn’t look. Perhaps if he feigned sleep he’d leave again, having confirmed he was still present and accounted for. Aziraphale had done much the same when Crowley had taken a nearly century long nap, after all. 

“...you’re not dead, right?” The question was too loud in the stuffy space. It made his head ache. Yet...there was a tremulous note in the demon's voice. Genuine trepidation.

Aziraphale meant to reassure him, he truly did. To tell him he was simply tired. That he earned a rest and what better place to rest than his own bed? 

What came out was “Mmn.” 

It would have to do. It took too much effort to speak. 

A silence stretched on. Crowley didn’t come closer but he didn’t make any move to leave either. It was strange, feeling so exposed and observed despite the thick layer of blankets protecting the angel from his sight. He distantly wondered what expression Crowley was wearing. Disgust? Concern? Confusion? Anger?

Aziraphale very nearly missed the soft  _ “Oh!” _ of understanding. He didn’t miss the  _ “Right then”  _ that followed shortly after. 

What was suddenly understood and decided upon, he didn’t know. Worst yet he wasn’t given a chance to consider it further. Crowley was moving away from the bed but not toward the stairs. 

Aziraphale groaned in pain and contempt when Crowley threw open the curtains, letting in the midday sun and nearly blinding him. Next he pried the windows open, letting in a crisp, cool breeze. A protest began to bubble in his throat but was choked to an indignant yelp when his fortress of blankets was unceremoniously yanked away. 

Crowley stood there at the foot of the bed, sun glasses off, looking uncharacteristically stern with his arms crossed over his chest and his posture straight. Aziraphale started another protest, voice hoarse from disuse, but Crowley then did something then he rarely ever did.

He cut him off. 

“You fuckin’ stink, angel. Jumping Jesus in the Garden, when’s the last time you’ve had a wash?” Insulting him so rawly was a new one as well. Aziraphale didn’t know what to make of it. He raised a hand to miracle himself clean but a glare from snakey, yellow eyes stopped him.

“Nope. Shower or a bath. The human way. Go.” 

Aziraphale thought about trying to argue again but, really, this behavior was so unusual for the demon he found he  _ wanted _ to escape. Just until he got his sluggish thoughts sorted. He shuffled his way to the bathroom and decided to have a bath, given the two options. At least in a bath he could sit. 

Bubbles were added just because he usually liked them and, really, if Crowley was going to bully him into basic hygiene he’d at least use his fancy, Parisian bubble bath. 

The shocking behavior from his long time friend didn’t end there, though. 

Once Aziraphale was settled down in the bath Crowley entered with only a brief, cursory knock and set about gathering his rather wrinkled clothing. Aziraphale got bubbles in his mouth from his jaw dropping with indignant shock. Crowley didn’t notice as he didn’t look towards the bathtub at all. He was focused on acquiring every last scrap of discarded clothing, seemingly unconcerned with the naked angel sitting in the bathtub less than a foot away.

Instead he was talking. “Take as much time as you need. Luxuriate a bit. Scrub up. I’ll still be here when you’re ready.”   
  
Aziraphale wasn’t sure if he meant  _ ‘ready to get out of the bath’ _ or some other kind of  _ ‘ready’. _

The bath  _ was _ nice, though. Hot and soothing. He hadn’t realized how devastating all the time in bed had been on his muscles but now they were loosening in too hot water and it felt delightful.

He reached towards the string of emotion dangling around him, found one close, and pulled it in.

Ah yes. This was  _ pleasurable. _ This was  _ relaxing. _ He  _ liked _ this. 

The feeling of wellbeing that cleanliness brought about only increased as he washed and conditioned his hair. Then, because he put so much effort into his hair, he decided to give his skin the same treatment. Exfoliating, washing, and moisturizing. 

By the time the bath was draining and he was brushing his teeth while miracling himself dry he realized he felt better than he had since the Apocalypse. 

The strings felt a bit closer. 

Cracking the door open he peered out into his flat. He didn’t want to saunter around in only a bath towel, after all, and he half hoped that Crowley had seen fit to miracle his clothing clean and free of wrinkles. Instead he caught sight the demon putting a foreign set of sheets and blankets on his bed, no miracle in use at all. 

He must have felt his eyes because he glanced up towards the bathroom with an inscrutable expression. “All done?”    
  


Aziraphale nodded, bewildered. 

Crowley turned to his wardrobe and pulled out a hanger featuring an outfit comprised of some of Aziraphale less worn clothing and-

“Where’s my suit?” He found himself asking, surprising himself with the alarm he heard in his own voice. 

“At a dry cleaners. Don’t worry about it. I use ‘em all the time. A miracle can’t compare to the stuff they do with fabric,” Crowley informed him coolly. “You own other clothes, angel.”   
  
“Yes but-”   
  
“You can’t go out naked.”   
  
“Really!” Aziraphale scowled, feeling that his sense of decorum was being called into question. “I know that! I never planned on going-”   
  
“We’ going to see Hamlet,” Crowley once again cut him off, challenging him with a look. “After that we’re going to The Ritz. Reservations have been made and it would be wicked of us not to show.” 

Aziraphale’s head felt like it was spinning on his neck, threatening to pop off. “Crowley, dear, talk sense-”   
  
“Two months, Aziraphale,” Crowley took a step towards him. “I haven’t heard from you in two months. Not a phone call, not an answer when I’ve knocked-”   
  
“You’ve knocked? I never-”   
  
“-and not even a  _ light _ on in the evening. Yes, yes, before you ask I did loiter around like a fucking creep to see if i could catch you. I’m not proud of it.”   
  
Aziraphale felt a little tug at the corner of his lips. Precious, needlessly concerned creature. “I should imagine not.”   
  


“You do remember that we had people trying to kill us a short time ago, right?” Crowley continued to rant, gesticulating wildly as began to pace the flat. “Not just discorporate. Out right murder. Dead. Gone.  _ Poof! _ I was starting to think...to think...well...I could feel you but  _ what if…?  _ Then I started feeling absolutely crazy because  _ I’m a bloody demon _ ! I should be able to just break in! Easy! Yet I didn’t because you seemed...seemed ...”

Aziraphale waited as Crowley ran out of steam. He wished he’d been allowed to dress before the verbal barrage started but here they were. Crowley was dreadfully out of sorts and it was all his fault. He’d gladly catch a bit of a chill if it meant the demon found solace in spilling himself into the air. 

His own guilt was caught about his throat like a yoke. _He caused this._ _He did this._ How awful a friend he had been. He wasn’t deserving of such concern. 

Crowley swallowed, thickly, looking guilty himself though Aziraphale couldn’t fathom what for. He’d done nothing to cause this...this  _ emptiness _ in him. He silently held the outfit he put together out to him. “Just...get dressed, okay?”   
  
Aziraphale didn’t have the heart to turn him down twice. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The show was delightful. A splendid rendition of a classic. Certainly not the best Aziraphale had ever seen but that was neither here nor there. Not every performance was destined for greatness after all. What counted was the enjoyment. 

And he  _ did _ enjoy himself! It was nice being out. At first he felt strange, as if all the world was looking at him and knew that he had been  _ something _ lately. It left him hanging back and wishing to snap his fingers, to throw invisibility about himself.

Then Crowley had taken him by the arm, interlinking them at the elbow.

It was grounding. Steadying. 

For the first time in a long while Aziraphale heart performed a fluttery dance in his chest. 

Crowley’s hand found his after the intermission. It was a just a brush of fingers across his knuckles. It may have even been an accident, in retrospect. Yet Aziraphale turned his palm up in offerance.

It was taken, their fingers intertwined. 

Another distant string came closer to him. He reached for it greedily. 

_ Nervousness. Excitement. _

_ Something else. _

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dinner started with a bit more silence than either than them was accustomed to. It was usually Aziraphale that started things. He’d pick a topic that he found interesting, natter on about it, and Crowley would interject to tease or add his own unique point of view. Once started nothing short of a forcible ejection by the wait staff would end the ebb and flow of conversation. 

This time Aziraphale had read no new books, dined at no new restaurants, or heard any new gossip. The only thing he could think to talk about was the strange affliction he found himself plagued with and that didn’t seem like polite dinner conversation at all. In fact it seemed needlessly dramatic and alarming. He’d worried poor Crowley more than enough, thank you very much. 

Appetizers had arrived by the time Crowley cleared his throat, opened his mouth, closed it again with a click only to clear his throat again. He eventually worked his way there. 

“So-uhm-remember that time I napped for nearly a hundred years?”   
  
Aziraphale most certainly did. It had been after their rather public spat. He hadn’t even noticed Crowley was missing until twenty years has passed. He grew concerned after twenty-five had slipped by without so much as a word or an attempt at meeting up. He let it be, figuring the demon had been more put off by his denial of holy water than he could have guessed. 

Forty years and Aziraphale finally gave in. He’d begun conjuring any number of bad ends or situations that could have kept the demon away. A human summoning gone wrong? A recall to Hell?  _ Had he gotten his hands on holy water? _

Had Heaven stepped in and forgotten to inform him?!

It was only after he found Crowley sound asleep like the princess in Perrault’s fairy tale that he relaxed. This was immediately followed by a desire to smack the man silly where he lay and tell him off for worrying him so-

Oh. 

“...yes. I’m afraid I do.” There was shame in his voice. He bowed his head and poked at his appetiser half heartedly. 

“I never meant to sleep so long, you know?” Crowley mused, blowing on past Aziraphale’s obvious penitent posture. “Just...didn’t feel like there was much worth getting up for. Sleep is easy. You’re not dead but...eh. You don’t have to think or face or plan anything while asleep.”

Aziraphale glanced up at him, bewildered. It was rare to hear such raw honesty from Crowley. Vulnerability was neither of their strong suits but his dear friend seemed to struggle the most out of the two of them when it came to opening up about important things. Big emotions scared him and sent him running for the nearest bottle of whiskey lest his tenuous aura of ‘cool’ collapsed. 

Such honesty meant he felt he had no other choice. Some kind of urgency was spurring him to bravery. An emergency.

Aziraphale had a sinking feeling that  _ he _ was the emergency. 

“Crowley, my dear, I see what you are trying to impart on me but, I can assure you, I am fine. I was merely tired.” He adopted his most soothing tone, the one he used to hush children and demons alike. Yet there was a tremble in his words that troubled him. 

He was lying. Something was wrong. 

He just...didn’t have the foggiest idea what. 

Crowley was studying him intently from behind dark glasses, fixated on him and only him. Typically Aziraphale was used to the single minded attention Crowley would devote to him in social situations. Flattered, even. This time, however, it was intimidating. It left him feeling splayed open like a frog on a dissection tray. 

The imagery made him feel ill. It made him squirm.

It irritated him. 

“What?” He snapped, stabbing aggressively at his appetizer, scraping the plate with a shrill noise as he did so. “What’s that look all about, then?”   
  
Crowley tore his eyes away, suddenly very interested in his champagne flute. He wet his lips, took a sip, and set it down gently. Finally, just as Azirphale felt like he was going to snap at him again, he spoke. “It’s hard, innit? Trying to figure out what your place is in the world. Harder for us because we were under other people’s thumbs for so long. It’s left me without a sense of purpose.”   
  
A sense of purpose….

Aziraphale felt he was teetering on the precipice of some grand realization. Was that what his mood, or lack thereof, meant? He had no assignments, no reports, no goals. A free agent. An angel without direction from on high. 

“All I know is that...that we’re still here. You and me,” Crowley continued, not looking at him, but his hand slid across the crisp white linen of the table cloth, crossing the invisible line that separated his half from Aziraphale. “I  _ can’t _ lose you but I kinda feel like I have. You’re right there but...you’re not, are you? There’s something heavy in you and I can’t fix it. I can only help where I can.”   
  
He finally,  _ finally, _ looked up again. Aziraphale could see his own face reflected in those glasses, his stricken expression, his increasingly wet looking eyes.  _ “You’re _ my purpose, Azirphale. I don’t expect to be yours but...just know I’m in your corner, alright? Even when you’re feeling like this.  _ Especially _ when you’re feeling like this.”

The tears in his eyes finally spilled over. It should have been more humiliating, given the fact they were in the middle of the Ritz during a rush. Yet no one seemed to pay them any mind. A demonic miracle, he realized. 

This thought only caused him to cry harder, in a way he hadn’t since that first day he took to bed. He reached out blindly, grasping at Crowley’s hand, and found it grasped tightly in return. More tears came from this stupid, simple act of comfort. 

Something in him was breaking wide open, as if all his emotions were trying to make themselves known and recognized at once after being ignored for far too long. 

He sobbed, damn near wailed at one point. A wordless, tearful cleansing of himself. 

At some point Crowley’s chair shifted closer, so that their knees bumped beneath the table. There was a soft clatter of silverware being unceremoniously dumped on the tables surface as a pristine cloth napkin was freed and a careful hand began using it to dab away at his tears. “Angel, angel.  _ Aziraphale _ . Shh...that’s it. There’s a good post-recovery, depression cry. You’ll see, you’ll feel lighter. I’m not leaving you like this. Not ever again.  _ I’m so sorry, angel.” _

The words were so fierce and protective they brought on a fresh wave of sobs. Aziraphale could never acutely feel Crowley’s emotions the same way he felt humans but he couldn’t deny the promise in his tone, the loyalty.

The absolute, unfettered love. 

Crowley loved him, in good times and bad. 

For the first time in many weeks Aziraphale began to feel light. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After the tears dwindled and his face had lost some of the post crying puffiness, they left The Ritz. Neither were very hungry. Both wanted copious amounts of alcohol and to simply be alone with each other. They had things to say and it seemed unfair to squat at the best table in the restaurant while they sorted through it all. 

Aziraphale mused that he must have been feeling a little better as for the first time in a while he felt flustered upon seeing the dusty, rather unpleasant state his shop was in. He’d fallen far behind on his up keep. “Oh dear me,” he fretted as looked about the backroom. “I must apologize for the mess. Just give me a moment-”   
  
Crowley snapped his fingers, leaving the backroom sparkling clean and smelling vaguely of pine cleaner. The demon offered a rather sheepish smile. “Handled it.”

Aziraphale didn’t have it in him to reprimand him or inform him that he could have done it himself. The gesture was too sweet to argue with, especially after all the care the man had already provided. It would have been cruel to tell him off for being so kind. 

A bottle of port was procured from a hidden spot behind his shelves. Glasses were poured and they sat next to each other on the old couch. They drank.

Silence. 

Then.

“I’d like to stay the night.” The statement was blunt and strained, as if Crowley had been struggling with a grander declaration of intentions and that was all he managed in the end. Seeing Aziraphales questioning look he flushed a rather comely shade of vermillion. “Not like  _ that. _ Just...want to make sure you get up in the morning. It can be easy to slip backwards when it comes to these kinda things if you don’t have someone pushing you along.”   
  
Aziraphale took a drink to steady his own voice and realized that plan hadn’t worked at all when he heard the nervous tremble that remained. “I only have one bed.”   
  


Crowley patted the couch firmly, making a production of the gesture. “I’ve taken plenty of ill advised naps right here. One more won’t do me in. Worst comes to worst I’ll go right snakey and curl up on the radiator.”

Aziraphale nodded slightly, swirled his drink in his glass. “...you...well...if you wish to monitor me more closely I suppose we should be...closer, yes?”   
  
The demon drained his glass and wasted no time in pouring another. “Then I’ll sleep on the radiator upstairs.” 

“That one tends to be testy, I’m afraid. It runs too hot one minute and not at all the next,” Aziraphale murmured and took another small sip. “I wouldn’t wish you burned or frozen. Perhaps it would be better if...we shared?”   
  
An unnatural stillness fell over his normally fidgety companion. Aziraphale held his breath, daring not to attract attention to himself as the man worked through what was probably a series of complex thoughts. “Aziraphale-” he started, possibly heard how strangled his voice was, stopped. Another swig of port was taken for courage. 

“Aziraphale, I don’t...you don’t _ owe _ me anything,” the serpent wasn’t looking at him, instead he studied his glass as if it held all the answers. “I’m here because there’s no other place I wanna be. I’m here because I think you need me here more than you want to admit. You don’t have to-”   
  
All those string of emotions were suddenly dangling in front of his nose, taunting Aziraphale. He reached out and grabbed them by the fist full. 

“I’ve loved you since the forties,” he blurted, silencing the demon in a way he was rarely able to. “I’ve desired you since the Bastille incident.”   
  
Crowley slowly turned to look at him, lips parted but no sound passing them. 

Aziraphale reached and gently eased his sunglasses off his handsome face. He was met with wide, yellow eyes. Black pupils blown out. 

“I’ve been so out of sorts, my dearest heart.” His voice cracked as he admitted it. “So empty and lost. Please...please say you love me. Please let me love you.”

“It-it won’t make the feeling go away, you know.” Crowley warned, unable to look away. “I love you but...love doesn’t cure all ills.”

_ Oh his sweet demon. _

“My love, my sweet,” he was leaning in and Crowley, as if magnetically drawn, was leaning as well. “I love you even in the darkest night.”

Their lips met and it was like a benediction. A blessing. A chorus from on high. It wasn’t an erasure of the depression he found himself in but it was a soothing of it, a reassurance that things would even out and, when they did, they would both still be at each other’s sides.

It was wet and warm. Tender in a way that if Aziraphale hadn’t already sobbed his heart out for the evening it would have undone him. Thank God for small miracles. He was sure that Crowley would take any kind of weeping the wrong way, given the catalyst of this union.

And oh! It  _ was _ a union! His soul was singing and for the first time in all his existence he felt Crowley’s essence brushing against his own. Not even when they had switched corporal forms had the demon let his energy tangle with him. It was invigorating in a way he didn’t know he craved. All fire and green things after a rain.

It was Crowley who pulled away first, only to pepper gentle kisses at the corner of his mouth and a long his jawline. “Still good?”

“Splendid,” Aziraphale breathes beatifically. “Marvellous even.”

“You’ll tell me if it’s ever not?” It was less a question and more of a concerned demand.

“Darling, I have had the better part of the past few centuries to consider all the ways we might love each other. You would be hard pressed to find a way it’s  _ not _ good.”

Aziraphale wondered if he was being too bold. Perhaps such intensity was unwelcome after such an emotionally fraught time.

Then there was a forked tongue in his mouth, Crowley was in his lap, and all words seemed right.

All the world felt right. 

  
_ He felt right. _   


**Author's Note:**

> This was kind of a personal project for me? Something to help me through some things. 
> 
> I was also originally going to do smut but now I'm wondering if I should leave it be. :P Thoughts?
> 
> Thanks for reading! you can find me over at welcometoyielding.tumblr.com if you wanna.


End file.
